wOMEN TAKE NOTE: hOLIDAY HEART ATTACKS ARE TOO COMMON

We've posted this story before but we wanted to share it again becuase it's such a COMMON STORY! As instructors we hear women tell us stories frequently about NOT REALIZING THEY WERE HAVING HEART ATTACKS!

Heart attack deaths are highest during December / January holiday season.

According to a study published in Circulation, a journal of the American Heart Association (AHA), the winter holiday season is considered a risk factor for cardiac and non-cardiac death. While researchers don’t know exactly why heart attacks are more common around holidays, they note a number of possible reasons, including changes in diet and alcohol consumption during the holidays; stress from family interactions, strained finances, travel and entertaining; respiratory problems from burning wood; and not paying attention to the signs and symptoms of a heart attack.
Consider the case of Julie Rickman, a 41-year-old stay-at-home mom. “I felt like we were running around, going everywhere, and I just couldn’t catch my breath,” Rickman said. “I remember, two days before Christmas, we thought I was allergic to my live Christmas tree, and we took it down and got an artificial tree.” 
The day after Christmas, Rickman got winded while folding laundry. She thought it was exhaustion but decided to go to the emergency room, anyway. That trip saved her life. Along with two blockages in her heart, doctors also discovered she had suffered a heart attack.
“I have no idea when the heart attack happened. I was one of those women who attributed feeling bad to the holidays and thinking I was exhausted,” she said.
“The progression of heart disease doesn’t happen overnight, so an uptick in cardiac death during the holidays is actually more the acute manifestations of the disease,” said Jorge Plutzky, M.D., a volunteer with the American Heart Association. “Factors like cold weather, stress and dietary indiscretion can contribute to a chain of events leading to more stress on the heart. A cardiac event might be triggered because the heart is working harder.”